Evaluating the Influence of Intraverbal Topography in Conditional Discrimination Procedures

Stimulus equivalence training has been relatively under represented in the research literature for training individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in early letter-sound correspondence. The primary purpose of the current study was to compare the effectiveness of two different topographies of intraverbals on the emergence of untrained relations between letters and their phonemic sounds for two elementary aged children with ASD. Given frequent difficulties answering WH-questions for children with ASD, assessment and training using questions or statements was compared using a test-train-test sequence. Relations that required auditory-visual match to sample tasks emerged for both participants; however, emergence of untrained intraverbal relations differed based on the topography of assessment and training used. Limitations and future directions are discussed.